Deep in the woods, amid ruins, Stephen Gunderam demanded of Letitia
that she decide his fate.
A picnic in very grand style had been arranged; Letitia and Stephen had
remained behind here; and thus it had happened.
Around them arose the ancient tree-trunks and the immemorial walls.
Above the tree-tops extended the pallid blue of the autumnal sky. His
knees upon the dry foliage, a man, using sublime and unmeasured words,
asserted his eternal love. Letitia could not withstand the scene and
him.
Stephen Gunderam said: “If you refuse me nothing is left me but to put
a bullet through my head. I have had it in readiness for long. I swear
to you by the life of my father that I speak truly.”
Could a girl as gentle and as easily persuaded as Letitia assume the
responsibility for such blood-guiltiness? And she gave her consent. She
did not think of any fetter, nor of the finality of such a decision,
nor of time nor of its consequences, nor of him to whom her soul was to
belong. She thought only of this moment, and that there was one here
who had spoken to her these sublime and unmeasured words.
Stephen Gunderam leaped up, folded her in his arms and cried: “From now
on you belong to me through all eternity--every breath, every thought,
every dream of yours is mine and mine only! Never forget that--never!”
“Let me go, you terrible man!” Letitia said, but with a shiver of
delight. She felt herself carried voluptuously upon a wave of romance.
Her nerves began to vibrate, her glance shimmered and broke. For the
first time she felt the stir of the flesh. With a soft cry she glided
from his grasp.
Even on the way home they received congratulations. Crammon slunk
quietly away. When Christian came and gave Letitia his hand, there
was in her eyes a restless expectation, a fantastic joy that he
could not understand at all. He could not fathom what she hid behind
this expression. He could not guess that even at this moment she was
faithlessly withdrawing herself from him to whom she had just entrusted
her life, its every breath and thought and dream, and that in her
innocent but foolish way she desired to convey to Christian a sense of
this fact.
He loved her. From hour to hour his love grew. He felt it to be almost
an inner law that he must love her--a command which said to him: This
is she to whom you must turn; a message whose burden was: In her shall
you find yourself.
He seemed to be hearing the voice of Eva: Your path was from me to her.
I taught you to feel. Now give that feeling to a waiting heart. You
can shape it and mould it and yourself. Let it not be extinguished nor
flicker out and die.
Thus the inner voice seemed to speak.